Effect of variable blockage height ratio on performance for solar air heater roughened with 45° Z-shaped baffles

Solar air heater performance can be augmented using turbulators on the absorber plate. Turbulators like ribs, baffles, vortex generator, etc. has been used. In present work, the absorber plate has been roughened with z-shaped baffles. Various performance parameters have been estimated using MATLAB code. The effect of blockage height ratio (rib height/Channel height) has been studied for configuration having relative pitch ratio of 1.5 and attack angle of 45° under operating condition i.e., insolation of 1100 W/m2 and for attack angle of angle of 45°. It can be concluded that maximum effective efficiency of present configuration is found for Reynold number ranging from 5000 to 10000. Moreover, the blockage ratio of 0.3 has yielded optimum performance.